


Things Will Look Better in the Morning

by VJR22_6



Series: teamuncleweek2020 [1]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Gen, if youre here for actual tags and plot i have none. just post-moonvasion fluff., teamuncleweek2020, the prompt was bedtime story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27199342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VJR22_6/pseuds/VJR22_6
Summary: The mansion is hauntingly quiet after the invasion, and Della's off with the Moonlanders to get them settled. The job of getting the kids off to bed falls to Scrooge and Donald, who know just the thing for post-adventure restlessness.
Relationships: Dewey Duck & Donald Duck & Huey Duck & Louie Duck, Dewey Duck & Huey Duck & Louie Duck & Scrooge McDuck & Webby Vanderquack, Donald Duck & Scrooge McDuck
Series: teamuncleweek2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985648
Comments: 11
Kudos: 85





	Things Will Look Better in the Morning

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya guys! It's been a hot minute. I want to say thanks to everyone who's left me comments and kudos lately, I have sorely needed them. It's been a rough few weeks.
> 
> Anyway, here's the first of my Team Uncle Week fics! The prompt was "bedtime story" and I based said story on the Ducktales comic "Cheating Like Nostradogmus!" I hope you all like it, and please remember to leave a comment if you do!

The moon invasion is over almost as quickly as it began, and Della’s already semi-prepared to put her friends up. She just needs an extra pair of hands--namely, Beakley’s--a couple hours to settle everyone in. That doesn’t leave her much time to tend to the kids, though.

“Dinnae ya worry, lass, we’ll get them off to bed.” Scrooge is quick to reassure her, the soft evening breeze dancing through his feathers. The sun has all but set, leaving only weak streaks of orange painting the twilight sky. And now that the mansion’s yard is mostly empty of the many, many people who were here earlier, it’s hauntingly quiet. It makes his heart race in an unwelcome way despite the knowledge that everyone is safe.

“Yeah, we can tuck them in,” Donald declares. He doesn’t say what they’re all thinking, that he’s been doing it every night for a decade, but instead offers his sister a gentle smile. They can figure everything else out later. “Don’t worry, Dumbella.”

“Hey!”

They stare at each other for a very still, frustrated moment, then both burst out into laughter, and an easy warmth falls over them. Scrooge smiles in a way he hasn’t in a long time. There’s a hole in his heart that began to hurt when they vanished from his life, and only now, having them together, does he feel whole again.

Della’s laughter subsides first, and she shakes her head, her smile faltering. She looks to the ground and rubs her arm, in a way that speaks to internal turmoil worse than the day’s physical injuries. “I’m sorry. For—for everything. I keep messing up.”

“Aw, Del,” Donald sighs, reaching to hug her. “It’s okay. We all messed up a little with this one.”

“I almost got the kids hurt.”

There’s no denying that statement, but Donald doesn’t comment. He just holds her, gives her a moment to rest her head on his shoulder. In a way, the silence says what words cannot—that it was inevitable, that they don’t blame her, that sometimes bad things just _happen_. Scrooge reaches out a hand to rest it on her shoulder and she sets hers gently atop it, a quiet acknowledgement.

Beyond that, Scrooge doesn’t know what to do. He knows later Beakley will give him her signature disappointed frown when he tells her about this, and if he can catch Duckworth’s attention long enough to tell him, the old dog will roll his eyes. Both of them are just better with people, even people they haven’t seen in months or years. Scrooge just isn’t.

What he’d _like_ to say is that it’s okay. He’d like to reassure her and remind her there was no way of knowing the moonlanders’ leader would do what he did. He’d like to tell them both _you’re still kids to me, and I was scared to lose you too._

He doesn’t know how to weave those feelings into words, though, so he joins their hug and hopes that it’s enough. Maybe it is and they know he’s sorry, or maybe it isn’t and they know deep down that he’s to blame for all of this.

After all, he built the rocket.

He couldn’t talk Della through the storm.

He got her stuck among the stars.

He all but orphaned the kids.

He failed his family.

And yet they both put their arms around him, holding on tight like he's their anchor in a stormy sea. As if his faults are forgotten in favor of being loved. He doesn’t understand it, and maybe never will. It’s just nice to be home with them again for a moment.

The moment ends sooner than Scrooge would like, and they part ways to let Della catch up with Beakley. The two of them have their work cut out for them in trying to find space and supplies enough for the whole moonlander race. It’s not enviable work, but then again, neither is what he and Donald have been left with.

The front of the mansion seems looming and ominous, now that the earlier crowds have dispersed. Even after years of working with the supernatural and scary, Scrooge is left feeling unsettled. He almost expects to step inside and be swallowed up by his own home, to see only blackness beyond the door, like in a nightmare half-forgotten with time.

Of course, he doesn’t, and instead the kids are right inside, perched on the stairs together in their pajamas. Louie’s sitting back against the railing, yawning the biggest yawn he can, and Webby, right beside, is rubbing her little eyes. Huey and Dewey are sitting across from them, both tugging on either end of a cell phone. Whose it is is unclear from this distance, but their bickering is not.

“Let me do it!” Huey groans. “You’ll mess it up if you do it.”

“No I _won’t_!” Dewey yells. It’s sharp and loud, and the wee one looks frustrated as can be about it.

“Yeah you will. You always mess it up!”

“You’re messed-up,” Dewey retorts, and then both of them stop. Huey’s beak drops open a little, and his tired eyes begin to glisten in an instant. Even though he’s still a few feet away Scrooge can tell he’s too worn-out to fake one of his sensitive spots being struck like this.

“I’m—I’m sorry,” Dewey apologizes instantly. “I didn’t mean it.”

“I know,” Huey replies, looking away. Both of them let go of the phone, and it drops to the step in between them, forgotten.

Donald leans in and whispers to Scrooge the best he can with his lisp. “They get cranky when they’re tired. We should’ve come inside an hour ago.”

“Sounds familiar,” he jokes, pausing to lean on his cane. “I wonder where they could’ve gotten that from.”

Donald grumbles, but leaves it at that in favor of turning to the kids. “Why didn’t you go to sleep? Bedtime was an hour ago.”

“We _tried_ ,” Louie protests quietly. “But it’s, well….”

He avoids their eyes, and so do the others. In the quiet pause, Scrooge realizes that they’re probably most uncomfortable with the silence that’s blanketed the house since everyone left. He exchanges an understanding glance with Donald, and then shakes his head. There’s one fail-proof cure for post-adventure restlessness: a little old-fashioned togetherness.

Donald scoops Louie up, then leads the way upstairs. The kid rests his head on his uncle’s shoulder, closing his eyes sleepily. Huey follows after them dutifully, pulling an exhausted Dewey by the hand. Scrooge starts up the stairs after them, old bones creaking in protest. Webby, ever a sweetheart, ducks under his arm as if she can tell he needs support.

Normally he’d brush her off, but at present that’s not really an option. It gets him up the stairs, in any case, and then he can use his cane. At that point, she reaches for his hand, and as they walk the halls he muses at just how small the hand she gave him to hold is. How small _she_ is, and how brave she was today anyway.

He hopes she knows how proud he is to call her his niece.

It’s not a long trek to their destination, but when that turns out to be Scrooge’s bedroom, the wee bairns are understandably confused. Dewey turns to look at him while Donald opens the door, letting his eyes convey what he’s too tired to ask aloud.

Scrooge motions Dewey and Webby both forward, but doesn’t explain. He’s not quite sure how to, honestly. This was a tradition with him when Donald and Della were small, but they never really defined it. The two of them would just climb into his big bed, and he’d hold them until they drifted off. Some nights he carried them to their own beds after, but on far more he just let them stay, in a (usually successful) hope of keeping the nightmares away. For all three of them.

Donald sets Louie down on the end of the bed, and then takes to the head of the bed, leaning against the wall with a pillow behind him. Scrooge sets his cane and hat aside, and then joins him, flooded with the instant relief of getting off his feet.

Dewey climbs into Scrooge’s lap as soon as he’s settled, and Scrooge ignores his post-battle ache in favor of ruffling the lad’s hair. The duckling grins with the same smile as Della, forever craving attention, but his eyes betray how tired he is, and he snuggles in with a sigh. Webby cuddles close, too, taking to his side with ease and hugging him gently. He hugs her back and rests his hand on her shoulder as a way of silent reassurance that their wild, dangerous day is over, and they’re all going to be okay. He quietly wonders if it’s more for his own benefit or hers.

Beside them, Louie lays his head in Donald’s lap, sprawling out lazily along the length of the bed. Huey curls up carefully on his uncle’s other side, as if calculating just the right amount of space to take up. Donald pulls the kid’s hat off, setting it to the side with practiced ease. The sight makes something in Scrooge’s chest go up in flames, burning away the lingering worry and leaving behind only a loving, cozy warmth. The kids are all safe and sound, and that’s all he needs right now.

“Maybe you could tell us a bedtime story,” Huey murmurs, closing his eyes. “Like when we were on the houseboat?”

“Ooh, maybe—” Webby stretches, then relaxes with a little sigh. “Maybe about one of your adventures together.”

Scrooge glances around at the kids, and then to Donald, who shrugs with a familiar smile. The kind of smile he’d use when Della really, really wanted to do something, and while he wasn’t too keen on the idea himself, he’d do it for her. The kids are his whole world these days.

“Well, I suppose we could,” Scrooge tells them, and pauses for a moment as they cheer tiredly, ever delighted at hearing stories of before the Spear, and then he declares, “but ye have ta promise ta try and sleep. We told yer granny and Della we’d get ye off ta sleep before they come in.”

“Aw, they’ll only know we stayed up late if you tell them!” Dewey tries, but a firm look from Donald makes him sigh in defeat. His smile refuses to fade, though, and the others seem just as excited.

“Did we ever tell ye about the time we fought Nostradogmus, the ghost of a man famous for predicting the future?”

“What?!” Dewey chirps. Louie tilts his head to look up at them. “You’re kidding.”

Donald nods, but his expression is sour. “And got me trapped in a giant cookie!”

“Ach, and ye whined about it every day fer a month!” Scrooge jests. “Same as the time ye got shrunk _and_ the time ye were stuck in a big purple pumpkin. But ye made it out just fine!”

“I heard Nostradogmus used to time-travel and that’s how he predicted the future.” Webby murmurs, looking up at him curiously. He grins back at her.

“Aye, that he did, lass. He was using magical jellybeans ta do it!”

“Jellybeans?” Huey gazes at him in interest, scientific questions piling up behind his eyes. Actually, all four of them seem enraptured, so Scrooge forges on.

“He was rumored ta have left behind some of those jellybeans when he died, and I wanted ta find them.”

“ _Della_ was the one who ended up finding them,” Donald explains, gesturing with one hand. “There were dozens of paintings all over the walls, and she realized there were beans stuck in one of them.”

“Of course, Nostradogmus dinnae like us taking his things,” Scrooge remarks with a little laugh, recalling how scared the three of them had been when a door slammed behind them and a ghost materialized.

“You guys got out okay though, right?” Louie asks, and though he’s pretending to be disinterested, his sparkling tired eyes betray the most wonder of them all.

“We sure did,” Donald reassures him, offering the kid his hand to hold. “For the most part, anyway. There _was_ the whole chef thing to deal with first.”

“Ah, cannae forget that. See, Nostradogmus used time travel ta perfect his skills in everything, and one of the things he got very good at was cooking. He thought we were there trying ta become better chefs than him!” Scrooge reveals. “He had built the castle into a maze with only one exit, and set traps along the way.”

“The only way to avoid the traps would be to eat the jellybeans, travel back, and know where to go to avoid them.” Donald sighs, reminiscing. “Della ate the first one, and she was the only one of us to remember to step off that first trap door before it opened with us on top!”

“Mom _is_ always the smart one,” Dewey murmurs. Scrooge smiles tenderly at him, knowing the little one is too tired to notice.

“The next trap was a room full of fire extinguishers,” Donald tells them. “They were shaped like dragons, but they breathed water.”

“Aye, and the only reason we went in there in the first place was cause ye thought it was the exit,” Scrooge jokes, poking Donald, who rolls his eyes despite his smile.

“ _Whatever_ ,” he huffs, “we got out of there, anyway, and made it to the next room, where we ran into an armory full of skeletons….”

They don’t get to the end of the story before all the kids have drifted off. Donald grabs the blankets and tucks them in, and then rests his head onto Scrooge’s shoulder. And while the others rest, Scrooge watches over them, grateful to have his family so close.


End file.
